


Layers

by shiiki



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-24
Updated: 2007-08-24
Packaged: 2019-03-28 04:23:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13896165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiiki/pseuds/shiiki
Summary: Somewhere,she thinks,this is real.But she doesn’t know this for sure. Which of her many moving layers is real?





	Layers

**Author's Note:**

> Written pre-DH, but still canon-compliant. I received lots of inspiration for the shifting dimensions of Alice's mind from Madeleine L'Engle's _A Swiftly Tilting Planet_. (Go read it, if you haven't!)
> 
>  **Queenb23** needs a big, big hug for her super-efficient beta work, and reigning in a comma overdose in here. So if you liked this, squish her as well!

_She lives in layers, which shift and slide like layers of earth, heaving and buckling. She never knows which she'll exist in from day to day, but she's become accustomed to the transition between her tilting worlds._

She talks with Lily, and they worry about their unborn children. _Neville_ , her son will be called. She can see him in her mind's eye already, his face round and plump, very much like her own. In her imagination, he laughs, a musical, tinkling giggle, and she wonders how anyone could be so cruel as to harm a child.

But Voldemort is evil and has no mercy. She thinks this is what Lily is saying, but today, she is having difficulties paying attention to Lily because images from a different layer are invading her brain. In the other layer, Lily isn't Lily any longer, but a freckled, young slip of a girl with hair more vibrant -- almost orange, she thinks. These double-visions are the hardest to deal with. She has to struggle to listen as James enters and talks to all of them about a Fidelity -- no, Fidelius Charm, which will keep them all safe.

'But it didn't work,' says Frank's voice from nowhere. 'They still died.'

She is scared now, not just because there's been another death -- it's become a morbidly common occurrence among the Order these days -- but because her vision is swimming, and inside her mind, the worlds are tilting. She knows that this layer will fade soon.

 _Swirling, spinning ... shadowy, smoky ... Even though she's used to it, she can't stop being frightened every time. What will happen when one day the layers don't settle?_  
  
That day is not here yet. When everything steadies, she knows that she is in the hospital again. Here is her mother-in-law, patting her arm, saying cheerfully, 'Neville will be out of school soon, and he'll come to see you. Won't that be nice?'

Neville. Her baby boy. The only pictures that retain their clarity in her mind, whichever layer she is in, are those of her beloved son. When she's in the same layer as him, she sees him and remembers. Neville, as a chubby baby; as a wide-eyed child; a shy teenager; on the threshold of adulthood. Even though she believes these images to be a figment of her imagination half the time, in the rare moments that she arrives at the right layer, she _knows_ her child.

'That will be nice,' she tries to say to Mother Longbottom, but the words that come out belong to an entirely different layer of existence. Mother Longbottom simply smiles patiently and moves on to Frank.

She should know by now; in this layer, her words never come out right. Some days she doesn't realise this and becomes frustrated when Mother Longbottom -- or worse, Neville -- stares at her blankly when she chatters to them. Those are bad days in this layer, days when she ends up screaming at the top of her lungs in the hope that the louder she gets, the more comprehensible she will be.

Today is a good day; she understands that her words are trapped in another layer, and she is silent. It is better to be. Mother Longbottom's talk washes over her, as though casting a smoky veil over her mind.

 _Another shift, another warp in the layers. The same cold piercing fear as the whirling takes over._  
  
When it steadies, she wishes it has not, because she is in the layer of nightmares. There is screaming, crying, pleading, and some of it must be coming from her because her mouth is open, and that is her voice, and she is so scared, so scared for herself and Frank and Neville, who is only a baby, and what will become of the child, the teenager, the man that she imagines he will grow up to be, if she and Frank are not there for him?

Bellatrix Lestrange laughs, a most hideous cackle, and she hears Frank, his voice reduced to a begging croak: 'Please, please!'

She joins in, adding strength to his pleas, but their attackers are vicious, heartless, merciless --

'Where is the Dark Lord?' yells one of them, a mere boy, fair-haired and innocent-faced but for the hint of desperation and lurking madness in his eyes.

'Don't -- know!' she gasps. 'Please! Don't --'

' _Crucio_!' Frank's screams fill the air, and she feels pain, heart-wrenching pain, at the sound. Bellatrix Lestrange's wand is pointed at her, and she knows she is next ...

 _The pain comes in distorting waves. The world is speeding up again, moving so fast that she can't catch her breath. Time must be flying past, but she has no conception of it; time is fluid, a quantity that slips and slides with the shifting layers._  
  
Time must be running out. She has a foreboding feeling in her gut that something bad is going to happen. She tries to shake it away, but it prevails.

Frank looks in on her -- she is sitting in their study now, face propped on her elbows -- and asks if she's coming to bed.

'You look so serious, love. Are you all right?'

She opens her mouth to answer, but she worries that words of a different layer will spill out. Instead, she nods. Frank comes to her and kisses her briefly on the forehead.

'Don't stay up too late,' he says gently and leaves her.

Alone again, she is lost in thought. Hallowe'en approaches, and the day scares her for some reason. The information that someone is going to die floats to her from a different layer, a world beyond her grasp right now. It wobbles there, smoky and formless, in her mind, and she cannot figure out if it is she who is dying, or Frank, or -- heaven forbid, Neville.

No, not Neville. Her mind conjures a picture of him when she last saw him, sleeping in his crib. She grows him up a few years, to age seven; age eleven, beaming with his Hogwarts letter in hand; age sixteen, carrying his O.W.L. results; age eighteen, with a confident poise; age twenty-five, next to an ethereal-looking bride ...

 _Somewhere_ , she thinks, _this is real._ But she doesn't know this for sure. Which of her many moving layers is real? Perhaps they all are -- but that can't be right, can it? Or is the true reality simply the steep, hazy transition between all her different worlds?  
__  
Her thoughts won't settle. They are flying around in the air like Snitches, winking at her, taunting her. She tries to catch them, to pen them down, but they evade her. She feels like crying as she smoothes out the parchment she has attempted to write on.

Maybe it will make sense in a different layer. She wills herself to remember, tries to file them away in the same compartment of her memory that houses the thoughts of her son, hoping that when her world shifts again, these thoughts will still be there. Maybe then she can make sense of it, and if that happens, maybe the layers will hold still in the single one that is real.

 _It feels like a strong gust, tearing at the snippets of thought that she wants to hold on to. Her head aches with the effort; it is too much to bear, and it all flows away into the smoky in-between ..._  
  
There is something that she needs to do. She stares blankly at the small square of paper in her hand.

 _Neville_ , she thinks. _Something to do with Neville._

He is coming, isn't he? Mother Longbottom said so.

She smoothes out the wrapper, a satisfied smile spreading on her face. She will give it to Neville.  



End file.
